


Sucy's New Test Subject

by Colin (Kyrielle)



Category: Little Witch Academia
Genre: A reasonable amount of angst, Friendship, Gen, Potion-Based Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-02-23 03:01:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13180986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyrielle/pseuds/Colin
Summary: Sucy finds a surprisingly receptive test subject in Jasminka, the girl ravenous for new and exotic tastes. However, Sucy's intensive experimentation, combined with Jasminka's gluttony, ends with dangerous (and potentially hilarious) results.





	1. Chapter 1

It was definitely a rare feat. Akko and Sucy were at their desks, diligently working in the quiet of a clear afternoon, while Lotte was rhythmically turning from page to page as she read a pristine volume of _Night Fall_ in the upper bunk, gently waving her bare feet in the air. Akko would occasionally squirm, adjust her outfit, or stretch, making an audible groan in the process, but the room was mercifully calm. Sucy, however, was busy with other work. While Akko was, to the best of her abilities, concentrating on the material for her Magic Linguistics class, Sucy was peering through a pair of thick goggles at a small but complicated set of chemistry equipment. She was an absolute wonder with the materials, deftly gathering, sprinkling, siphoning, and extracting chemicals from the numerous resources around her, which included mushrooms, flower bulbs, and mysterious vials full of oddly colored liquid. It was an impressive sight, but she performed this sort of work so often that the other two had practically grown numb to it. Even Lotte, who had an excellent view, preferred to immerse herself in the plights of Edgar and Belle as they ventured through medieval Europe. Her concentration was soon interrupted, though.

"Lotte, is 'Tia Freyle' Germanic or Romantic?" Akko called from below, not even looking up from her desk. Without a pause, Lotte responded, "Germanic. Remember, after the dispersal of the modern broom in 1797, it didn't take long for the witches of Hadley to—"

"Yes, thank you!" Akko cheerfully said, scribbling new text onto her paper. She remained quiet for a few seconds before she twisted herself around to confront Lotte once more: "Hey, Lotte? You said '1697,' right?" Lotte shuffled herself forward so that she could see Akko over the edge of her bed, then said, "No, 1797. You see, after Levi Dickinson mechanized broom design, the local witch population saw it as a means of transportation. Still, witches were being heavily persecuted at the time, so..." 

Lotte continued her lecture, and Akko tried desperately to stay engaged, keeping her eyes uncomfortably locked onto Lotte's. Meanwhile, Sucy, still working, saw an opportunity. With Akko's back turned, she silently stole her beverage and quickly altered it. Using a pipette, Sucy carefully let a single drop of a viscous, purple substance fall into the cup (a limited edition, Chariot-themed insulated mug), and stirred it rapidly but quietly until it dissolved. She gently placed it back on Akko's desk, barely stifling a sinister giggle. Lotte even observed these activities while she was speaking, but Akko could only detect a slight eye shift from behind her sizable glasses.

"...and thus, the incantation 'Tia Freyle' and its variants had been devised by the English-speaking witches of 19th century Massachusetts, and therefore, it constitutes Germanic origin," Lotte proudly concluded, adding a bit of flair by waving around her index finger. A few seconds later, Akko, who managed to keep the veneer of attention, suddenly said, "Thank you, Lotte!" and swiveled back around to her work, making a loud grating sound in the process. Lotte returned to her novel as well, giving a gentle sigh.

Akko then lifted the cup to her lips, disregarding an intent Sucy nearby, who was peering closely at Akko and holding a pen to a worn spiral notebook. Akko sipped some of her drink, then continued working, but noticed something odd after a few seconds. Her handwriting slowly became substantially worse. Normally, her penmanship wasn't exactly perfect, but there was still a noticeable decline as she continued to write. She said, "What?" to herself as she continued to scrawl, then finally gave up. Sucy, who was intensely scribbling notes, such as "2.3 seconds" and "No immediate taste reaction," suggested calmly, "Try using your left hand." Akko quickly complied, and was relieved to find that her handwriting was back to normal. 

"Thanks, Sucy, but..." Akko said, turning over to her friend, who was surrounded by incriminating equipment. She exclaimed, "Sucy!" Sucy laughed unceremoniously, still writing notes on the results, but Akko didn't see the humor. 

"How many times to I have to tell you to stop feeding me your potions?" she cried. Sucy responded, in the same dreary tone, "Look on the bright side. At least it wasn't lethal. All I did was switch your dominant hand." 

"Why? Why would anyone need that? And how long is this going to last?" Sucy swiveled herself back to her desk, so she wasn't even facing her flummoxed roommate, and said, "I have no idea, but be sure to tell me when it switches back."

"Why isn't this a big deal for you? And also..." Akko, now standing, turned around to face Lotte, "...why didn't you say anything?" She pointed an accusing left finger at her, and she flinched in fear, letting out a shocked whimper. She was only able to vaguely stammer, but Akko lost interest quickly, wailing, "Is nobody on my side here?!"

Then, abruptly, someone knocked at the door. The trio heard a gentle but boisterous call from the other side, "Hey guys, can I have help with something?" It was Jasminka. Although she was in a bitter mood, Akko answered the door immediately, quickly shifting to a cheerful disposition at the sight of her friend, "Hello, Jasminka! What do you need help with?" After lifting a ruffled chip from a bag in her arm, she replied, in her distinctive bubbly drawl, "Well, you three are in my Magic Biology class, and I was hoping..." She sniffed the air delicately. A smile formed.

"Do I smell strawberries?" she asked, punctuating her question with the bite of another chip. A confused Akko said, "Strawberries? What..." and sniffed the air as well, recognizing the scent of the fruit as well. They looked towards Akko's cup, the container of Sucy's potion. Sucy piped up after some thought, "That must be my potion. I guess it changes scent if left stagnant for a while." She quickly grabbed her notebook and presumably recorded that data. Jasminka quickly hurried over to the desk and grabbed the drink. Ignoring the Shiny Chariot iconography, she asked Sucy, "Can I drink this? It smells tasty!" Snickering, Sucy said, "Go right ahead." Before Akko or Lotte could even work out a syllable of protest, the pigtailed girl had already downed the entire beverage. She mulled over the taste for a few seconds, then spoke, "Hmm. More savory than I expected. Strong texture, very creamy." She tried to grab another chip, but missed several times. Akko prepared to suggest using her other hand, but before she could speak, Jasminka excitedly asked Sucy, "Do you have any more weird stuff like that?"

Sucy, in the middle of desperately scribbling, was caught off guard by her request. Soon, a menacing smile spread across her face, which was indeed threatening, but was really her only way of expressing joy. Akko and Lotte, recognizing the expression, looked to each other in a odd mix of apprehension and excitement.

"Oh, Jasminka," she said, "I have plenty to go around."


	2. Chapter 2

"Really?" both Jasminka and Akko exclaimed. The three girls were each showcasing their telltale signs of excitement: Sucy's smile widened further and she uttered a ghoulish laugh, Akko's eyes appeared to sparkle furiously, and Jasminka's rate of eating increased significantly (especially now that she had switched hands). Sucy delved into her dresser and extracted a hoard of plants and fungi, each of various shapes, sizes, and hues, and dumped them on her desk, then she immediately managed to sort them by effect, region, and level of toxicity.

Lotte, who had begun to climb down from her top bunk, said, "I don't know about this. Maybe if we—" but an excited Akko quickly confronted her with, "Isn't this amazing, Lotte? Sucy gets to test out her potions, Jasminka gets to try out new and interesting flavors, and I don't have to worry about being Sucy's guinea pig!" She leaped into the air during the last clause, ecstatic to be free of her burden. Lotte worked out a smile, but she still had reservations. Is Sucy's excessive experimentation and Jasminka's gluttony really the best combination? Now that Sucy's finally found an outlet for her potions, what's to stop her from going overboard?

"So, where do I start?" a curious Jasminka asked, observing the rows and columns of colorful mushrooms, molds, and flowers scattered across the desk. Akko and Lotte both looked in, equally curious. Sucy indicated with her hands while she spoke, "I'd prefer you start from the upper left and move across columns instead of by rows. I'd like to gauge your tolerance level with some of the safer ones before we move on to the more poisonous materials." Jasminka made some reservations for the first time, "Poisonous?" Sucy reassured her (or at least attempted to), "Yes, there are levels of harmful compounds in some of these mushrooms, but the knowledge that we'll gain from their consumption is more than worth the risk."

"Okay, then! What about that one?" Jasminka asked as she gestured towards a vial leaning in the corner, corked and filled nearly to the top with a gently glowing yellow liquid. Sucy's head turned towards it at an unprecedented speed, and she said, slightly louder than usual, "That potion is off-limits. No matter what happens, no matter what I say, no matter how desperate you are, you must never drink that potion."

The three other girls understood the message and nodded fiercely in unison. A few seconds of silence passed before Jasminka spoke again, "All right, then!" and picked the mushroom in the upper left corner, a small, bulbous amanita with a weirdly reflective sheen. She ate the entire mushroom in a single bite, and it gave off an unexpected crunch that somehow left the girl unperturbed. Sucy, now suddenly donned in her lab coat and goggles, asked, "So, what do you think?" 

"Spicy!" she said, smiling. Again, Sucy scribbled intensely in her notebook. She pressured further, "How spicy?" Jasminka paused for a moment, as if in thought, but in reality, she was preparing for something. A burp appeared to rise up from below, and comically filled up her cheeks. She let it out, and a huge plume of fire burst from her mouth, dissipating in a second in a cloud of smoke. Akko and Lotte leapt back, squealing in fear, but neither Sucy nor Jasminka reacted as extensively to it. Jasminka was mildly surprised, but Sucy continued recording the experiment, as if this was an entirely expected outcome. Jasminka finally answered, "Very spicy."

Akko asked nervously, "Do you have to run the tests in this room specifically?" Sucy responded, again without looking at her roommate, "Yes. All of my supplies, ingredients, and recording materials are in this room. It would take far too long to set everything up in anyone else's room, and I'd rather not invade their property."

"Well, what about the Magic Pharmaceutics professor...what was her name?"

"Professor Lukić," Sucy replied tersely, upset that Akko had forgotten her name. Akko continued, "Right, her! Doesn't she have a laboratory, or at least somewhere that she can make potions?" Sucy raised her eyebrows and said, "I doubt that the staff would approve of me doing these experiments. It's hard enough getting approval from a test subject." Akko squinted her eyes at her friend. As if she cared about getting approval! Akko addressed Jasminka, who had just ingested another mushroom, "And how about you? Do you think that working here is okay?" Jasminka stammered for a moment, but Akko went further, "Look at me, Jasminka!" She looked at Akko, even opening her eyes. As she did so, however, red beams violently launched from her face. Akko dodged immediately, and the beams struck the opposite wall, although they didn't seem to be doing that much damage. Akko shouted quickly, "Never mind, you don't have to look at me!" Jasminka complied, also not especially bothered by her deadly new abilities, then responded, first to Akko, "I'm fine in here, Akko! Thanks for asking," and then to Sucy, "It could use some salt."

Giving up objection, Akko returned to work at her desk, while Lotte exited with her novel, presumably to read in the library. Akko neglected to join her, though, as she also didn't want to pack her set of supplies. She did go out to refill her Chariot mug, though, confident that it wouldn't be messed with. 

An hour passed, during which Jasminka had successfully eaten thirty different types of fungus and plant matter, among which some had given her the ability to levitate, speak fluent Swedish, and breathe a refreshing mint flavor. Sucy and Jasminka's constant back-and-forth dialogue, as well as the numerous disruptive magical incidents that her potions caused, put a strain on Akko's already short attention span, and by the end of their experiments, Akko had only managed to write two-and-a-half sentences of notes. 

Jasminka finally departed, seemingly forgetting why she had come in the first place, and Sucy happily wished her goodbye, staring at the door and resting a cheek on her hand. She had managed to gather more data in a single hour than the entirety of the past semester, and it was only going to get better.


	3. Chapter 3

By the time Lotte returned to the room, Akko had already left. She had asked Sucy if she wanted to join her for dinner, but she declined with a singular, "No." Not wishing to bother Lotte, whom she assumed was still in the library, Akko resigned to eating alone in the cafeteria that evening, and her meal was finished much faster than she expected. She wasn’t used to being alone while eating; maybe it was the silence that bothered her. Not the silence around her, but her own silence. Akko was used to telling her stories, fantasies, dreams, and experiences to anyone who would listen, but now that she had no outlet, she just felt strange and uncomfortable.

Meanwhile, Lotte and Sucy sat in similar silence. Lotte was occupied with her browsing orb, presumably discussing the events of _Night Fall_ 's most recent edition with other excited members of the fan community. Sucy was continuing her work from before, compiling and sorting her collection of notes from the "Jasminka Era" of experiments, as she dubbed it. Neither of them spoke a word.

The sun had already set when Akko entered the room. Lotte turned around to wish her friend a gentle, "Hello," but it wasn't reciprocated immediately. Akko, occupied with other thoughts, responded after a few seconds with a limp smile, "Oh, hi." She changed into her sleeping clothes and prepared for bed, surprisingly early. Akko wasn't in the mood for anything, and the other two girls sensed it. Curled up in bed, she prepared to accept sleep's embrace.

This was interrupted, however, by a sharp knock. Akko, startled, rose rapidly, striking her head against Lotte's bunk. She shrieked in pain and clutched her forehead, still managing to ask through clenched teeth, "Who is it?" 

"It's Jasminka. I'm here for my second appointment?" 

Akko seethed further. She turned over to Sucy, still rubbing her forehead, asking, "Second appointment?" During this exchange, meanwhile, Lotte had quietly summoned a cyan spirit from a drawer in her desk. She spoke to it softly, and it morphed into a small block of ice. She handed it over to Akko, who accepted it without even looking, and placed it against the fresh bruise on her forehead, uttering a sharp, "Thank you, Lotte" (this was far from the first time that Akko had injured herself in this fashion).

"Come in, Jasminka," Sucy said. Jasminka burst in and hopped on to Sucy's bed. Jasminka, concerned, asked Akko, "What happened to your head?" Akko's sore face twisted into a grimace as she muttered, "Something stupid." 

"Sucy probably has something for that!"

"I don't care!" Akko shouted. She glanced at the three others, clearly disturbed by her sudden outburst. She considered apologizing at first, but decided against it. She then lifted the ice from her forehead, and it transformed into its more familiar flame-based form, then leapt back into Lotte's open dresser. Akko turned over, facing the wall, and quickly pulled the blanket over her entire body, forming a tight cocoon.

After a while, she heard muffled voices: "Shouldn't we say something?"

"She clearly doesn't want to talk right now."

"This mushroom has sort of a maple flavor...also, everything just turned green."

Akko then felt the gentle, rhythmic steps of Lotte climbing to her bunk, which was not a common feeling, as she traditionally went to bed before Akko. She was not remotely tired, and Sucy and Jasminka's chattering didn't help matters. The amount of time that passed before she slept was unclear to the girl. It was either ten minutes or an hour, potentially even longer. Akko was far more committed to spitefully remaining within her blanket cocoon than emerging to check a clock. When her thoughts weren't occupied by the strange sounds and comments issuing from the other side of the room, she wondered if she really was doing the right thing. She wondered if being Sucy's guinea pig was the only reason they were friends in the first place. She wondered if she had a right to complain. She wondered if sulking was really the best way to express her disdain. 

Akko woke up irritable, messy, and generally unpleasant, which was quite an unnerving sight, especially from her. The room didn't look much better, either; whatever Sucy and Jasminka had been concocting had caused an interesting series of stains, spots, and scars scattered across the floor, walls, and ceiling. There were twenty minutes left until Akko's first class, Magic Linguistics, and there wasn't enough time to prepare herself, aside from putting on her uniform. It didn't take Akko long to wordlessly dress herself for the lecture. Naturally, Lotte was ready, and had been for some time, but even she showed some vague signs of sleep deprivation. She and Akko shared the same class, and it was typically Lotte's duty to wake her up with the minimum amount of time to spare. Sucy, who took the class as well but only sparsely attended it, was happily continuing her potions work. After Lotte walked out the door, Akko, having given it some thought, wished Sucy a simple goodbye. She did not return the favor.

Jasminka tried to say goodbye, but her statement was muffled with several large bubbles that emerged from her mouth as soon as she spoke.


	4. Chapter 4

Akko and Lotte entered Professor Finnelan's lecture hall with about two minutes remaining until the beginning of the lesson. Lotte, despite being tired and even bitter, still managed a shaky smile upon her entrance. Akko, however, slithered into her spot next to Lotte without an attempt to appear happy. She rested her chin on the textbook, barely trying to resist the impulses of sleep, but Finnelan, who was quite used to her antics, kept a sharp eye on her, wordlessly threatening punishment if she chose sleep over learning.  


The lecture had barely begun before Akko decided to interrogate Lotte, who was fighting sleep with much greater effort than her friend, "Hey, Lotte, what do you think about Jasminka and Sucy?" Lotte, still intensely transcribing the professor's calm account of early Eurasian incantations, decided against responding, but Akko continued to prod her. She whispered, comfortably outside of Finnelan's earshot (which she had thoroughly tested), "I know you can hear me." Lotte gave a meek sigh and said, just as quietly, "I don't really have much to say."  


Akko, now more awake, forcefully exhaled through her nose and forced her cheek into her fist. She whispered again, "Well, if you don't have anything to say, then I guess I'll just have to tell you what I think." Lotte sighed in turn and refused to respond, continuing to flick her head like a bird between the lecture hall's chalkboard and her own notes. Akko continued, "All I can say is...that I'm afraid, really." There was a lapse in Lotte's writing for a moment, but she continued quickly.  


"Well, it's only been a day since Jasminka started testing ingredients, and already Sucy doesn't even seem to care that I exist. I mean, is that new? Should I even be concerned?" Lotte remained silent, but Akko didn't need her permission to continue, "I was happy at first, but then things kind of got out of hand, but it's not like Sucy cares. It's not like I matter. It's not like anything that I say matters." Akko was unconscious of the fact that she was raising her voice.  


"Whatever's going on in that girl's head, it's complicated, and I wish she could just come out and—"  


"Miss Kagari!" Akko tensed up as she heard the shrill, familiar call of her professor. She neglected to make eye contact, instead choosing to slouch and stare sadly at Finnelan's pointed chin. She continued, "There's an open seat in the front. I trust that you won't manage to babble your head off there." Akko squinted with disdain and sighed, "Yes, professor."  


She relocated herself to her usual backup spot, an open seat in the front, between two other girls whose names she never bothered to learn. Akko knew their habits at this point, though. The girl on the left picked her nose every five minutes or so, whenever she assumed nobody was looking, and the girl on the right liked to toy with her hair while she wrote, until there was a loose pile of brown strands scattered around her portion of the desk.  


The professor resumed the lesson quickly, and it didn't take Akko long to lose interest, her adrenaline already fizzled out. She spotted Lotte behind her, about three meters away, and then eyed her small school bag, loosely propped against the chair. Having been in this situation before, Akko didn’t take too long to adapt. As quietly as she could, she whistled three distinct notes while glaring at Lotte’s bag, noticing a brief green glow issue from it. Lotte noticed as well, and Akko detected a sharp sigh from her, even from such a distance. Akko whistled again, slightly louder, and the two girls beside her luckily paid no mind; they were familiar enough with Akko’s antics at this point. Finally, a small, pale green spirit slowly extracted itself from Lotte’s bag, and Akko whispered a barely audible but triumphant, “Yes!” in response. The spirit began surreptitiously bounding towards Akko, and the other students paid as much attention to it as they would a restless fly. The professor must have heard something, though, as the sharp clacks of her shoes grew closer and closer to Akko.  


“Miss Kagari!” Finnelan cried again, just as the spirit had nestled itself into Akko’s lap, barely out of the professor’s sight. Akko gave a quick, delicate reply, curling her words in an innocent timbre, “Yes, Professor Finnelan?” The professor swept her shriveled eyes across Akko’s desk, remarking on the absence of notes, “I trust you’ve been paying attention?” Akko replied, “Of course! I write very slowly, so note-taking during lectures is always...”  


“All right!” Finnelan squawked. She continued, “Then can you at least tell me...the etymological root of ‘Tia Freyle’?” Akko inhaled sharply, puffing out her lips like a frog, then made a quick dash through her memories. Yes! She swiftly spoke, “Germanic! Because the spell was made in Massachusetts after the broom was invented, back in 1697.” Lotte quietly issued an involuntary correction, almost to herself, “1797.” Finnelan smirked, then retreated to her podium with a weak, “Good enough.” She spoke again a second later, without turning her head, “And get your finger out of your nose, Lucia. It’s disgusting.”  


The girl on Akko’s left retracted her finger from her nostril with a soft note of apology. So her name was Lucia, then. Was she Spanish? Anyway, it was time to do what she had summoned the spirit for. Akko cupped the spirit in her hands, and it felt like she was holding some thick, warm soup. She whispered a message, intended for Lotte: “So, I wanted to talk about Sucy, remember? I think there’s something really worrying going on with her and Jasminka.”  


Akko then gestured the sprite towards Lotte, and it happily returned to her. A clearly irked Lotte, glancing at Akko, tilted her ear towards the spirit, who relayed Akko’s message as a slightly degraded and echoed recording. Lotte inhaled through her nostrils, and, not wanting to draw attention to herself by speaking, scribbled her response on a spare sheet of antiquated paper. She folded it up in a neat and simple pattern, handed the small message to the spirit, and directed it back towards Akko. It read, in elegant cursive that Akko, as a native Japanese speaker, found hard to discern, “Yes, it’s a problem. They’ve messed up our room and lost us sleep...”  


Akko gave up after that point, since Lotte was clearly missing the point, and her calligraphy was far too complicated to read. She was about to write a follow-up message, but didn’t have a quill on hand. Akko prodded the girl on her left, “Hey, Lucia?” Without looking in her direction, the girl responded, “Yes?” in a vague accent.  


“Can I have...uh...a writing tool?” Before Akko had finished speaking, Lucia quickly thrust a dingy pen at her. She stammered for a moment, then responded as she tentatively grabbed it, “Uh...gracias!” Akko scribbled her response below Lotte’s, in significantly less stable handwriting, “That’s not what I mean. Sucy keeps ignoring me and pushing me away. I’m afraid that we’re losing our friendship.” Instead of folding in in the same pattern, Akko absently crumpled the paper into a loose ball and returned it to the spirit, who, in turn, returned it to Lotte. She reflexively cringed at Akko’s treatment of the paper, as well as her crude handwriting.  


By the end of the lecture, the paper read as a basic conversation.  


“Oh, your friendship is important, sure, but I’m also afraid that our room is going to be demolished.”  


“Well, it looks like we both have a reason to stop these experiments! How should we do it?”  


“I don’t know, Akko...the two of them seem really happy together. I wouldn’t want to ruin what they have.”  


“What they have? Jasminka’s a test subject! Sucy’s just taking advantage of her! That’s not friendship! It’s not like they talk to each other or share their feelings!”  


“Sucy’s not the kind of person who shares her feelings, though. How do you know she hasn’t always felt this way about us?”  


There was a long pause before Akko returned the next note.  


“Because I went into Sucy’s mind, remember? She might think I’m an idiot, but she still values something about ~~me~~ us. I think that she doesn’t really understand the effect that she has on others, but I know how much she cares. I care about her, anyway.”  


“Maybe you should tell her that, then.”  


“You’re right! After this class is over, I’m going straight back to our room and tell Sucy what I think! Thank you, Lotte!”  


“We could have discussed this after class, you know…”  


“What would I have done during class, then?”  


Akko did not receive a response, but she was satisfied anyway.


	5. Chapter 5

Akko and Lotte stood against the door to their room, silently affirming their plan. Akko inhaled deeply through her nostrils, even pressing her fingers together in a gesture of mock meditation. She was going to enter the room, delivering a slight knock as a notification, she was going to calmly approach Sucy with a minor indication that a serious talk is coming (e.g., Sucy, we need to talk…), and Lotte would assist Akko in calmly addressing the mutually harmful situation in which the two other girls have found themselves. Lotte glanced around, bunching her eyebrows and wrestling her fingers together in small, fraught gesticulations.  


“All right, here goes!” Akko whispered, either to herself or her friend, turning the knob and advancing.  


“Sucy, we need to—WHOA!” the witch exclaimed, frantically leaping backwards. Their room had gone from a magic-induced mess to a magic-induced warzone. The walls, ceiling, and floor were caked with pale fluids, decorated with scorch marks, and adorned with uneven cracks. A set of glistening stalactites had emerged from a section of the ceiling above Sucy’s bed. A crop of damp, tangled vines had sprouted in the corner closest to Akko’s desk. A medium-sized, quadrupedal reptile with a fringe on its back was scuttling about on the floor. It appeared to be an iguana. Sucy and Jasminka remained in their usual positions, unaffected, although Sucy’s equipment had practically doubled in size and complexity, and Jasminka seemed to be contributing to the experiments as well, as she was surrounded by notebooks with insightful descriptions of taste and texture.  


“What have you been doing here?!” Akko screeched, forcing her way to the two and delicately maneuvering her feet through the sparse patches of untouched floor. She addressed the both of them alternately, “How could you have made this much of a mess in just two hours? Why is the floor so sticky? You didn’t damage anything important, did you? And where did the iguana come from?” Both Sucy and Jasminka quickly raised their hands as an answer. Meanwhile, the reptile scurried loosely out of the room, with a distant Lotte squealing in response and shrinking against the nearest wall.  


Sucy interjected in her usual monotone, “Nothing important was damaged, Akko. Anyway, we can clean this stuff up easily. Witches are expert janitors. We ride on brooms, remember?”  


“I don’t care!” Akko screamed, directly into her roommate’s dour face. She didn’t flinch, but the other two did. The flustered girl continued, “It doesn’t matter if you can clean it with a snap of your fingers! You need to stop these experiments, right now! Your stupid results aren’t worth this nonsense!”  


While Sucy remained silent, her expression steadfast, Jasminka added softly, “Sorry, Akko. I was just enjoying trying out these new mushrooms.” Akko shoved her lips inward and flung her head towards the stout witch and yelled, while Lotte quickly swatted her hands back and forth in an unheeded gesture of warning, “Yeah, no surprise there, Jasminka! No wonder it was so easy for Sucy to make you into a guinea pig! You’d eat your own hat if you didn’t carry snacks everywhere you went!” There was silence for a few seconds. Unlike Sucy, though, Jasminka did not take Akko’s statements with Sucy’s level of stoic defiance. Her mouth quivered for a moment, and small tears soon formed at the edges of her dimpled eyes. Akko slowly receded, realizing too late the damage she had done.  


“Jasminka…” Before she could begin an apology, the girl erupted from her seat and charged out of the room, wailing the entire way and ignoring the viscous substances coating the soles of her shoes. 

Akko inhaled through her teeth and croaked, “Guess she’s more sensitive than I thought.”  


“Akko!” Lotte whimpered angrily, “Go after her! Say you’re sorry.”  


“Well, yeah, I was going to do that, but you have to come with me. You didn’t back me up at all when I was...calmly explaining my side of the argument.”  


Lotte gave a sharp sigh, then, “Fine. Let’s go.”  


They left their room at a quick pace, leaving Sucy alone, trapped with her own stern expression and a set of unfinished notes. In the corner, as always, was a glowing yellow potion sealed firmly in a vial. Sucy muttered coldly, “Maybe.”  


The two girls shuffled their way to Jasminka’s residence, keeping their heads low and refusing to speak. The door to her room was open slightly, and Akko intruded headfirst to gain some reconnaissance. Jasminka was sitting, hunched over on her bed, limply moaning into her hands. Her roommates were present as well; Amanda found a place on her right, and she was sitting cross-legged, absently patting her friend on the back in a loose gesture of comfort. Constanze, her churlish face still frozen, was stroking Jasminka’s left arm, as she hadn’t quite gotten the grasp of others’ emotions. Upon Akko’s full entrance, complete with a shaky, “Hey…” the two immediately snapped their heads in her direction, seething. Akko was used to Constanze’s cold glare, but Amanda’s grim, contorted face terrified her.  


“Uh...Jasminka…” Akko said, refusing eye contact with any of the other witches. She glanced towards Lotte, who gave a vague flail and mouthed, “Say sorry.”  
Akko inhaled, but Amanda spat before she could speak, “Go on, Akko, we’re dying to hear!” Akko considered addressing the brash student, but spoke to Jasminka anyway, “I’m sorry for what I said. It was very rude, and I…” Jasminka slowly extracted her face from her hands and eyed Akko directly as she continued, “...didn’t mean it at all. You can even...keep working with Sucy if that’s really what makes you happy.” Jasminka gave a comically loud sniff and replied in her usual happy, if slightly more shaky, tone, “No, it’s okay. I know you don’t want me messing your room up. I was just so caught up in the new flavors that I didn’t think about what you guys felt.”  


Akko and Lotte gave a heavy sigh of unified relief. This had gone better than both of them were expecting, and Akko decided to solidify their new deal. She enveloped her arms around Jasminka (her hands could barely reach each other) in a hug of reconciliation. Jasminka quickly complied, squeezing Akko violently. A few seconds passed, until Akko wheezed, “Okay, Jasminka, we’re good, we’re good!”  


She pried herself away from the witch and let a few breaths of laughter loose. She said, “All right! So we’re good?” Lotte spoke up behind her, “Well, we’re halfway good. We still have to make up with Sucy, remember?”  


”I can help with that!” Jasminka said, bouncing up with excitement, “I was a part of this mess, so I’m going to help clean it up!” Lotte muttered, “Figuratively and literally,” and she was slightly disappointed that nobody heard her. Akko rejoiced, “Hooray! Let’s head back together, then,” as she flung her arms around Lotte and Jasminka, leading them out the door in an awkward series of steps and motions. Akko glanced at Jaminka’s roommates to gauge their approval: Amanda smirked gently, but wiped it away quickly, and Constanze, stern as ever, gave a brief thumbs-up in their direction. Everything was going to be fine.


	6. Chapter 6

The three students fluttered back into the previous room, with nothing but friendship and triumph on their minds. Sucy’s position had barely changed since they had left, as she was coldly hunched over her desk, scribbling notes into a well-organized layout of loose papyrus and bound notepads. She didn’t turn to face her roommates upon their entrance, even when Akko called, “Sucy, we need to talk.” Every muscle in Sucy’s body reflexively tensed, and even a spare sheet of paper was violently squeezed in a new, taut fist.  


“You’re back,” she said flatly, without turning around. Akko and Lotte stopped immediately, intimidated by her response, but Jasminka advanced without their fear. She started, “Sucy, we have decided that it’s best to—”  


“...to stop these experiments!” Akko concluded, refusing to let Jasminka resolve the situation on her own. This was when Sucy decided to turn around, and her chair swiveled with a violent screech that took the other three aback.  


“Everything just has to be about you, doesn’t it, Akko?” Sucy uttered, almost looking into her eyes but aiming elsewhere. Akko stammered in a confused mix of anger and shame. She wasn’t the one who nearly blew apart the room, who took advantage of Jasminka, who ignored her roommates’ clear signs of protest! Just because Akko was a bit bombastic doesn’t excuse Sucy’s reckless experimentation.  


“I must have done something wrong, anyway,” the morose witch continued, “since you decided to check on me after Jasminka. Looks like you have your priorities straight.” Jasminka had taken notice of her friends’ discontent, which was brewing like the froth of one of Sucy’s viscous poisons, and added, “Hey, Sucy, it’s okay. Everyone’s friends here!” Sucy did not take Jasminka’s intrusion well, and she retrieved the yellow potion from its designated spot; “Here, try this.” She addressed Akko again, “I’m just your exotic mushroom friend, I know. Your silly nuisance that accompanies you on your wild adventures.”  


Akko responded with hostility, “Like I’m anything to you! I’m just your personal clumsy ditz that you can experiment on whenever you want!”  


Meanwhile, Jasminka fondled the potion for a moment, softly saying, “I thought I wasn’t supposed to drink this.” Sucy, without separating her eyes from Akko’s, replied tersely, “Whatever, just go for it.”  


“I thought I meant something to you! I thought that I could be the bright, special thing in your gloomy, miserable...fungus world! But no, all you needed was someone with a bigger stomach.”  


“Enough!” a shout rang through the room, spoken by none of the three, but by Lotte. Her face had taken on a redder tone, her freckles melding with the rest of her skin, and her posture was bent, with every arm and finger extended at a stressed, acute angle. She continued, as the others were too stunned to protest, “You’re both being horrible! Akko, you’re not just a selfish, clumsy ditz, but you’re also not the only person here. Not everyone exists to cater to you, not Sucy, not Jasminka, not even me, but that doesn’t mean we don’t care about you, either.” Despite her initial shock, Sucy let out a snicker, along with a deep whisper, “Way to be told off by the quietest one here, Akko.”  


Lotte’s eyes, warped to a sharp blue blur from her thick lenses, shot across to Sucy, who was given a tirade in turn, albeit shakier and less stable, “And you need to understand the effect that you have on others. You’re Sucy, and we can’t change that, but it doesn’t give you the right to toy with your friends and classmates, even if they are your test subjects!” The girl’s jaw was wobbling noticeably, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She had run out of adrenaline about halfway through her Akko-directed diatribe, but she had continued anyway, not refusing her only opportunity to bludgeon some sense into these girls. Lotte reclaimed her timid stance, receding behind the sheen of her glasses and proud of what she had done.  


“I’m sorry, Sucy,” Akko said, in a confident tone atypical of Akko’s few apologies, “...for thinking that I am the only thing that matters to you, and for picking the worst way to respond to every change.” The young witch assumed that this statement was enough, and she leaned back slightly, swallowing a lining of hollow saliva and forcing an odd smile onto Sucy.  


“I’m sorry, Akko,” Sucy responded, the words causing an obvious strain. She looked to the floor and mumbled gently, “I didn’t mean for this to go as far as it did. Well, I probably did mean for it to go farther, maybe providing the fuel for my fungal empire of power, deception, and despair…” Akko giggled uneasily, caught between the levity of the moment and a dark vision of Sucy sitting in the porous seat of a mushroom throne, her fungus feeding on the world’s detritus and forcing her populace into unwilling submission. Sucy continued after a moment, “...but I shouldn’t have left you behind. And I shouldn’t have taken roped Jasminka into this. Her minimal self-control makes for a good test subject, but it’s not necessarily healthy for either of us. Jasminka, I’d like that potion back now, please.”  


”Of course! Here you go!” Jasminka replied, twirling the vial in a gently flowing gesture as she handed it back to Sucy.  


”Jasminka…” Sucy’s flat voice vaguely requested.  


“Yes?”  


“This is empty.” The faces of the other two girls immediately sunk into a mess of fear and despair. Jasminka only held the potion for a few seconds, and none of them had noticed her uncork the vial and drink its entire contents? The same potion that Sucy had instructed for her to never drink? Akko didn’t know if she was speaking her thoughts or just keeping them locked inside. Lotte had already imploded into a stuttering wreck. Sucy stared intently at the empty vial, invariable performing countless calculations and raiding her memories for clues and answers. Jasminka, who was the only one not expressing some kind of panic or fear, simply asked, “What does it do?”  


The other two perked up at the question’s basic nature and pressured Sucy further, piling on variations of the question: What is it made from? What makes it so special or interesting? How long does Jasminka have to live? Why did you refuse to let her near it at first? What in the world does this potion do?  


Sucy responded to every question in an unexpectedly swift, sly report, and, in the process, almost suggested a new degree of venomous enjoyment, “Oh, I have absolutely no idea.”


	7. Chapter 7

Akko, Lotte, and Sucy, bunched together as usual, stared with apprehension at Jasminka, keeping a reasonable distance and expecting anything. Akko only thought of violence, imagining her friend exploding, melting, or even morphing into a reptilian beast, spewing fire and crushing everything beneath her scaly feet, not unlike the _kaiju_ films of her youth. Lotte’s thoughts spilled into the more fantastical and bizarre, with her Jasminka becoming incredibly smart, reverting to childhood, or transforming into a handsome man (she clung to this thought longer than the others). As the resident chemist, though, Sucy’s possibilities overwhelmed her: Jasminka could multiply, photosynthesize, shuffle her organs, grow an extra pair of eyes, ears, hands, or feet, become petrified, or even all of those at once! Jasminka herself, however, was strangely calm, swabbing the inside of her cheeks with her tongue and tasting the residue that the potion had left. She took notice of their obvious fear and said, “Don’t worry, guys, I think everything’s going to be...oh…”  


Jasminka cupped her hand over her mouth, partly expecting a deep burp but unsure of what her stomach was indicating. The other three witches held their breath and tensed every muscle of their faces, curious and terrified beyond measure. Finally, Jasminka issued a guttural noise, somewhere in between a burp and a violent gasp, and she lurched forward with her arms wrapped around her, as if she was prepared to fall into pieces. She righted herself soon afterwards, swaying gently as if nauseated, and she grasped for Sucy’s bedpost in an effort to keep herself stable.  


“See? I’m fine…” Jasminka said with a hint of strain and unease, but she noticed something off, “Did you guys get...shorter?” Sucy immediately extracted herself from her haze of imagination and spoke quickly, although not to anyone in the room, “Spontaneous size increase, repetitive over an unpredictable time scale, perhaps exponential, active ingredient: lipid cholesterol obtained from a troll, difficult to counteract but not impossible…” Her head twitched towards her desk, scanning her vast collection of notes. Akko asked a tentative, “Sucy...what does that mean?” but received no response. Sucy deftly sorted through every sheet of paper scattered across the table, scraping through them one by one and checking every word for the appropriate data. Jasminka, her cheerful veneer slowly fading away, asked in turn, “Sucy, what’s happening to me?”  


The pale witch froze, then turned to address Jasminka, “You just grew five centimeters, and you will continue to grow in that fashion until the potion is spent. You could end up anywhere from the size of a tree to the size of the entire school, unless we can stop it.” Lotte responded suddenly, “Well, let’s get her outside, right now! She’ll destroy the dormitory or get crushed by the ceiling if we leave her here!” The remaining girls agreed with a brief grunt of confirmation, and Jasminka slowly ambled towards the door, gaining some height since her last growth. Her head was now barely reaching the ceiling, and her width was enough to accommodate the other three students. When they reached the doorway, though, Jasminka struggled to push herself through. Horrified, Akko and Lotte, who were planning to accompany her to the courtyard, attempted to push the hefty girl through, but Jasminka could barely move her shoulders, as she had tried to exit headfirst.  


Akko grasped her head loosely, then announced an idea, “We’ll have to blast a hole through the wall! Or go out through the window!” She readied her wand, which quickly pulsed to life, “Murow—”  


“Stop!” Sucy shouted from her desk. The other girls turned around to face Sucy, now donned in an elaborate laboratory outfit, complete with goggles and oversized gloves, although Jasminka had some trouble turning around without knocking part of herself against the room. She continued, “We won’t be able to get her outside in time, and we’ll have to blow holes in the entire building if we wanted to get her out at this rate, especially if Akko was in charge of magic.” Akko forced herself to stifle a response as Sucy went on, “We can make an antidote right here, in this room, before Jasminka grows too big.” Everyone looked towards the oversized witch, who, at a height of nearly two meters, was forced to sit down in the corner beside Akko and Lotte’s bed. Recognizing Sucy’s expertise, they looked to her with an affirming nod, and Akko asked with a sting of confidence, “All right, then, what do you need?”  


Sucy sprouted a toothy smile, happy to be rid of any obstacles, then declared quickly, “I’ll need a cup of water, a hair of the afflicted, and the tear of a friend.” Akko looked to Lotte quizzically, muttering with a mixture of relief and confusion, “That doesn’t sound so hard—”  


“I’ll also need sodium stearate, six grams of keratin, and some amylose.” The girls gave a brief, unified groan, and Lotte quickly responded, “I’ll get the water!” and rushed out, presumably fetching it from the bathrooms. Akko protested, “Oh, come on, that’s the easiest one!” but the girl had already sprinted away. She puffed out her lips in a comical gesture of frustration, then turned to Jasminka, who had bunched her legs, now the size of logs, against her chest, and said, “Everything is going to be just fine.” She responded, in a deep, powerful voice that surprised all three of them, “Thanks, Akko!” Akko checked Sucy, who was preparing an elaborate set of equipment, then decided to aim for the simplest ingredient she could remember, a hair of the afflicted, presumably Jasminka’s.  


She bounded towards her gigantic friend, who was looking at Sucy as well, wondering vaguely if that witch really did believe that they could all solve this conundrum, and if they would ever forgive her if things turned out badly. Jasminka felt weak, despite her proportionally colossal strength, and she knew that her gluttony was the only reason that everything was such a horrible mess. Was she the mess? Was she the conundrum? And could she help fix it? Suddenly, Jasminka felt a small but painful sting from her hairline, and she swatted involuntarily at the source, only to hear a sharp cry of pain from a tiny Akko, who had just tried to yank out a strand of Jasminka’s absurdly long, tough hair.  


“Oh, I’m so sorry, Akko!” she cried to the girl, who had been roughly flung into the wall. Jasminka considered helping the injured Akko, but abstained, fearing that she might damage her more. Akko groaned out meekly, “It’s fine,” and attempted to right herself, but shrieked in pain when she pushed herself up with her right hand. Jasminka put her meaty hand against her face, now the size of a large pumpkin, and asked in shame, “Is it broken?” Akko stood up, relieved that she still had a single, barely pink hair clutched in her left hand, and said, “I don’t think so, but I’m not using this arm anytime soon.”  


Akko ambled over to Sucy’s desk, barely conscious of the room’s increasingly messy state, and she thrust the strand of hair at the diligent girl with a hearty, “Here you go!” Sucy grasped it, refusing to pull her attention away from her equipment, and said, “Why didn’t you just ask Jasminka for one of her hairs?” Akko, flustered with both herself and her friend, replied, “I don’t know! I thought it would be easier to—”  


Akko’s sputtering explanation was interrupted by a loud and unsettling creak from the ceiling. Jasminka, even while curled up, was large enough to put a strain on the room’s foundations. Sucy suggested, in a calm but abrupt tone, “Lay flat along the floor; it will even out your weight and give you more room.” Jasminka struggled to comply, though. Every time she adjusted herself, the room was strained further, as if the girl was navigating a dormitory made of delicate chips. The thought of chips comforted Jasminka, though, and she managed to spread herself from wall to wall by laying on her side, giving her enough room for a few more minutes of growth spurts.  


Her temporary comfort was soon interrupted by a small knock to her back. The three witches froze as they heard the muffled voice of Lotte behind the door, now blocked by Jasminka, “I got the water, but something’s blocking the door! Can you move it?” Jasminka cringed in shame, but she found that even the slightest of movements ushered in another ominous creak from the floorboards. Akko looked to Sucy, who didn’t bother to put in the extra mental effort to think of a solution, then called out to Lotte, “Jasminka’s blocking the door, but she’s stuck there! You’ll have to find another way in!” She didn’t bother specifying what that way would be, but she was oddly confident in her friend. Lotte responded, “Well...okay! I’ll try!” and the girls heard her lightly scamper off after some hesitation.  


Akko addressed Jasminka quickly, “Okay, well, we have one ingredient of, like, seven. Let’s get going.” Sucy didn’t respond, and it didn’t even look like she was giving Akko attention, as she was busy running Jasminka’s hair through an elaborate system of burners and fluids. Akko intensified her interrogation, “Sucy, I need to know—” and she leaned her right hand against the desk, yelping in pain from her injury. Sucy took notice, and she rifled through a selection of corked vials stored within her desk until she found one, a creamy, barely pink fluid; “Try this.” Akko took it hesitantly, and uncorked it, muttering, “Is this some kind of healing potion? And why does it smell like...strawberries?” Akko widened her eyes, remembering a peculiar potion with a silly effect, the last one she had imbibed before Jasminka took Sucy away. She looked to Sucy, who was giving an unusually warm, gentle smile, one that Akko detected even through the girl’s layers of protection, “You can’t gather ingredients if your good hand isn’t working.”  


“Sucy…” Akko said in a wavering voice, “why you do all of this experimenting? Is it really just about knowledge and power?” Sucy responded without a pause or sense of fear to her voice, “Sometimes yes, sometimes no. At least, not when I experiment on you.” Akko gave a small gasp, struggling to keep her lips still.  


“Of course I use you as a guinea pig to understand my potions, but maybe there’s more to it. Maybe your immune system is stronger, maybe you amplify the effects of the ingredients, or maybe it’s something else. Maybe,” Sucy looked directly at Akko, and she felt her sincerity even beyond her tinted goggles, “you’re just that special.”  


Akko issued a whimper through a hand clasped over her face. She blinked slowly, and a pool of tears melted from her eyes. She struggled to speak, “Thank you, Sucy...it means so much that—” and Sucy, with a swift reaction, thrust a pipette onto Akko’s cheekbone, extracting several milliliters of her tears. Akko squeaked, “Hey! What was that?”  


Sucy let her friend’s tears drip into a beaker containing the powdery extract of Jasminka’s hair, and they reacted together with a gentle simmer that smelled of sunflowers. She finally responded, “Second ingredient: the tear of a friend.”  
Akko quickly extracted herself from her stunned silence and drank Sucy’s strawberry-scented antidote, muttering defiantly, “I hate you.” Before she could pressure her for the next several ingredients, they heard a harsh series of knocks against their window. The two turned their heads and saw a hopeful sight: Amanda O’Neill held aloft with a sturdy broom, with a terrified Lotte desperately clutching a bucket of water behind her. Akko immediately swung the window open, carefully navigating around Sucy’s equipment, and said, “All right, I’ll just take the water, then!” Lotte, whose face was locked in fear, extended the bucket to Akko with one hand, while the other hand was wrapped tightly around Amanda’s waist. As soon as Akko grabbed the bucket, Lotte’s free hand clutched Amanda as well. Losing breath, she took notice, saying, “What’s the matter, Lotte? I thought you were fine with flying.”  


“Not with you! You fly far too quickly, and that warm-up flip was completely unnecessary!”  


“Well, you said Jasminka was in trouble, and I decided to come over as quick as possible. How’s she doing, anyway?” The broom instantly sank about a foot, giving Amanda a better view of the room’s interior. Jasminka, who, now curled up in a ball, was taking up a third of the room’s space, shouted with a low, nearly masculine voice that shook some of the room’s looser trappings, “Hi, Amanda!” The girl’s green eyes widened in shock, and she rasped, “Whoa. You were not lying. I’ll just drop Lotte off, then, unless you need my help.” Sucy replied quickly, now carefully adding precise amounts of water to the mix, “No. We don’t have enough room at this point if you give us Lotte. You can just fly away and tell absolutely nobody about this.”  


“You got it, Suce! Keeping secrets is my specialty!” she said, backing half of her broom smoothly through the window and allowing Lotte to carefully and gratefully dismount. Amanda rocketed away, presumably back to her room, leaving the remaining witches dazed, but ready to assist. Sucy asked, probably not expecting a response, “When did she start calling me ‘Suce?’”  


The girls, including Jasminka, looked to each other quizzically, but immediately snapped their attention to Sucy, desperate for new orders. The girl inhaled deeply, then spoke in a rapid monotone, “The three remaining ingredients are a bit complicated, but we can still obtain them from common items. Sodium stearate, as a sodium salt, is used in light cleaning compounds like soap and solid deodorant. Lotte, see if you can find either of those. Akko, keratin is a protein used for extraneous bodily solids, like fingernails and hair. We’ll need a lot of it, though, so grab me your pillow.”  


The two immediately set out to work, with Lotte rifling through her items for cleaning materials, while Akko fetched her pillow. In the process, though, she spotted her Shiny Chariot poster, mostly unscathed from Jasminka’s experiments, but still a bit worn. Akko asked herself the same question she would in times of adversity: what would Chariot do? Of course she would be heroic, beautiful, and charming while saving the day, but was there anything else? She would make sure that everyone played their part, too, since that’s the most inspiring thing about her. Chariot always reminds us that anyone can be like her if they just try hard enough, and anyone can be forgiven for their mistakes.  


Akko added her pillow to Sucy’s desk and asked, “Is there anything that Jasminka can do to help?” As if in response, a creak evolved into a loud crunch, as another one of Jasminka’s spurts caused her to sink into the floor, cracking some of the wood beneath her. Sucy thought for a moment, then sighed, “Maybe. The final ingredient is amylose, the linear polymer of starch. Jasminka, do you have anything like that?”  


Jasminka thought through her evident panic, and grumbled, “I have some snacks in my pocket. Would those help? I can’t really move, though. Also, wouldn’t they be giant, too? Why are my clothes also growing along with me?”  


Sucy was clearly mulling over a detailed, biomechanical solution to Jasminka’s question, but she simply replied, “Magic. And yes, give me your snacks.” Akko leapt over to her enormous friend, treading carefully as she felt the floor shift beneath her. She said, “I’ll get them!” and searched her for conspicuous food, “Are they in your pockets?” Akko received a quick response, “Yes! My side pocket has a potato in it.” Akko clambered up onto Jasminka’s hip, worried that her weight might disrupt the room further, but, luckily, no such damage occurred aside from another disruptive crack. Akko successfully retrieved the aforementioned potato, which had evidently not grown in size, an odd side effect that Sucy would hopefully explain later. Akko shuffled her way off her friend, then addressed her with a powerful stance, “Thanks for your help, Jasminka! It’s a good thing you had this with you!”  


“Oh, I love potatoes! They’re like chips, but cheaper and less sharp!”  


By the time Akko returned, potato in hand (her left hand, of course), Sucy had successfully concocted a solution from Akko’s pillow feathers, leaving the pillow discarded on the floor. Lotte had found soap as well, and Sucy was continuing to apply her skills at full force, running the bar of soap through her convoluted magical extraction process. When she received the potato, though, she instantly diced it with a nearby scalpel and ran it through a similar process with her other hand, dividing her concentration equally between both ingredients and never losing track of either reaction. Sucy even added some flair as well, neatly sliding and exchanging her gear in delicate arcs across the desk. Unable to assist, Akko and Lotte simply watched, astounded at their friend’s talents and partially wishing they could be applied to something other than poisons and fungus.  


Finally, Sucy combined the ingredients into a single beaker, and they churned and bubbled together, rapidly shifting in color and luminosity, until it settled on a dim, foamy purple. Sucy, recognizing the antidote’s completion, grasped it, sealed it, and flung it across the room. The girls panicked, fearing for a moment that Sucy had simply gone insane and decided to torment them further, but the reaction seemed intentional. The potion exploded against the wall, bathing half of their room in a thick, purple cloud, completely obscuring Jasminka from view. As some of the scent, which reminded them of a light lavender, crept closer, Sucy assured them, “Don’t worry. It’ll only work on Jasminka.” She snickered, “Probably.”  


The gas dissipated quickly, revealing a normal-sized Jasminka lying awkwardly in sizable dent on the floor. Overcome with relief and happiness, Akko and Lotte rushed towards her, embracing her with joy and declaring a series of happy remarks. Even through her exhausted shock, Jasminka still managed to return the hug, not saying much but excited from everyone’s compassion. Through Akko and Lotte’s joyful fretting, Jasminka saw an exhausted Sucy, alone at her desk and watching them with an ambiguous expression, probably Sucy’s own version of happiness. Jasminka wordlessly beckoned her former practitioner to them, and she obliged with some hesitation, slithering across the room to join in her friends’ revelry. She kneeled beside them and added to the hug, grateful that she had been invited, even after everything.  


Before any of them could comment, though, they heard a final, desperate crunch from the floor, and the four of them fell through the layers of weakened foundation, still in a tightly wound ball of friendship. They landed in a heap and spread in a confused pile, with bits of wood and dust continuing to fall. Akko was the only one who hand landed on her back, and she found herself staring directly at two confused, shocked faces that she did not recognize. She gave a nervous smirk and looked up at the uneven hole they had left in their ceiling. Finally, she spoke in a reassuring gesture, “We’ll...clean it up. We’re witches, after all! We even ride on brooms, remember?”


End file.
